Amelie's Point of view
After Claire went off in a mood, I rang Bizzie to see if there was anything that needed my attention.
"Well, there are no meetings or appointments but-"
"Hello, Amelie I need to see you quickly." Myrnin cut taking the phone off Bizzie.
"Give the phone back."
"Please can you see me? It's about Claire. I heard she has no accommodation and she is staying at the houses on the edge of town and that will just not do, all the rats-"
"Fine, just stop talking." I hung up and sighed. What did he want this time? To be honest I just wanted to stay here and wait for Melissa or Eva to show up and tell me which man is Christopher.
"Ma'am?" The guard knocked on the door.
"Yes?"
"Myrnin's at the door for you. He's says it's urgent."
Really? "Fine, I will come." I walked past the guard to the front door, where a few of my guards stood holding back Myrnin. "What do you want, that couldn't possibly wait until I got to my office?"
"I need to see Claire."
"If this is about her accommodation, I will send her to live with you, once I'm done with her."
"Well, no. It's about her studies with me... Amelie why is there a little girl in your house?" I turned and saw Eva standing at the door of the kitchen.
"She's my... Well she's Claire's friend." I said. "Claire's busy at the moment come back later."
"No, wait I need to talk to her!" Myrnin protested, but the guards would not give in until he is gone.
"Get out of here, you heard her." Oliver said, stepping around Myrnin.
"You know I don't do anything you say." Myrnin shrugged off the guards. "Amelie, please it's won't be long!"
"No, I won't tell you again. Leave." I turned around and went to the living room and sat down on the sofa. "What do you want?" I asked, Oliver when he came in.
"How are you doing?"
"Fine. Is that it?" I asked, not in the mood today. Oliver began to reply then he stared past me. I looked to where he was looking and saw Eva. "Oliver, this is Eva."
"Why is she here?"
"She's visiting." I said. Eva pointed to a piece of paper then vanished.
"Your living with ghosts now? What, have you brought the burnt bodies here or something?" Oliver asked, annoyed.
I made a face. "Why would I do that? And no, Claire is their anchor. They are gonna help me with something." I picked up the paper.
You have to be nicer to Claire or she will not help you.
"What will they help you with?" Oliver asked, taking the paper off me.
"Something that is none of your concern." I said, standing and taking the paper back. I went to my desk where another slip of paper awaited.
You and Claire need to dream, we need to talk to you. Below the writing was a picture of two people standing, holding hands. The second picture was of them having the same dream, but the other person was inside the first person's head.
"Amelie, tell me what's going on." Oliver asked. I could tell he's getting agitated. This won't end well if I continue this.
"Fine. Christopher's back and the ghosts need Claire to stay here, so they can help me find out which body he is in." I didn't bother simplifying it, I just dropped the paper and went upstairs to talk to Claire.
I pushed open the door to find my maid Valerie having a conversation with Claire. She wasn't doing anything, they were just talking.
"Valerie, make sure downstairs is tidy, please." I surprised her but she nodded and left in a hurry.
"Yes, miss." She closed the door after her.
"What do you want?" Claire asked.
"Melissa wants us to try something. Come downstairs."
"Do you really not love me anymore?" Claire asked, after a period of silence.
"I already told you-"
"No. Do you think of me at all?" Claire interrupted.
"I did think the way I broke up with you was harsh. But after that, the only time you come into mind is when Oliver or Myrnin mention you."
"Then why should I help you?" She asked. "I bet you couldn't care less, if I had never existed at all."
"I wouldn't go that far. Now come downstairs." I had no patience for this, even though Melissa said I needed to be nicer to her.
"What if I refuse? Will you break my neck again?"
"No. The thing Melissa wants to try, is that we holds hands and have the same dream. If your in my head, maybe then you will see my real feelings for you and you wouldn't keep saying I'm pushing you away."
"I don't understand... What do you mean have the same dream?"
"It's not like that. Melissa does a spell and you transported into my head. Just come downstairs, it will be explained more clearly."
I could see Claire wanted to refuse me. But in the end, she sighed and got up. "Fine, when do we do this?"
"Now."
Claire's Point of View
As I followed Amelie downstairs, I thought over what I had agreed to. What did she mean by this dream thing Melissa had said? I suddenly wanted to go back into my bedroom, but then I would never know if Amelie really doesn't have any feelings for me anymore.
In the living room, I saw the woman standing against the wall. She smiled at me, then pointed to a piece of paper. I smelled coffee and felt a little irritated that Oliver was here, or had been here.
"For this to work, you need to go in my mind since I am the strongest." Amelie read the paper. Melissa pointed to another piece of paper and Amelie read that one. "You need to hold hands and close your eyes, then Eva will perform the spell that allows them to talk with us."
"Um... Maybe this isn't such a good idea." I stared at the floor and shuffled my feet.
"You've faced down some of the scariest vampires, braved death multiple times, but this scares you?" Amelie asked and shook her head. "The faster I find Christopher and get rid of him, the faster you can leave and live wherever you want. But you will stay here until I find him."
"Why do I need to be here in the first place? The ghosts are appearing fine."
"You're their anchor, that's why. Without you, they would only be able to appear for a few seconds, maybe a minute." Amelie replied. How did this happen? I had only found out about them a few days ago.
"So... We do it now?"
Amelie holds my hands, not too tightly. I had almost forgotten what her hands feel like, but I couldn't think about that now. "Close your eyes." She said. I did so and waited. Maybe a few seconds passed and I felt stupid standing here. What if-
I gasped and opened my eyes. Amelie is in front of me and we are somewhere unfamiliar. "Where are we?"
"Somewhere I spent a few years in the early years of being immortal." She replied. We were in a house of some sort, but the only comfort were a pile of pillows and thin sheets.
"Did it hurt? The uh, process?" I asked.
"I was young then, I struggled against him so it did hurt a little."
"I meant the spell." I let go of her hands and stepped back a bit.
"It was nothing I couldn't handle." Amelie replied after a few seconds. I looked around expecting Melissa or Eva to come but they hadn't made an appearance, yet.
Suddenly the house changed and a bedroom took its place. It took maybe a minute to realize whose it was. "Hey, this is my bedroom!" It felt like I was in the bedroom but there was a wall of some sort stopping me from touching anything.
"You will find the surroundings change frequently." Amelie said. The door to the bedroom opened and I came in and laid down on the bed. When I was asleep the door opened again and... Amelie came in. Before I could find out what she is doing, the room changed again.
"Wait... Your thinking about this, aren't you?" I asked. "What were you doing here?"
"Melissa will have to explain herself when I see her." Amelie sighed. "That was before you knew I had affection for you. I would come and... Watch you. Only for a minute. No-one ever saw me."
I couldn't help but think that was incredibly creepy... Someone standing over you, watching you sleep...
"Um, okay..."
"Your unsettled. It's understandable." Amelie shrugged a little. "I didn't see you any other time."
Next came up when we were in Amelie's house and still together, but it didn't stay long and quickly disappeared. "Amelie, stop it." How was I supposed to know if she had any feelings left for me when she wouldn't let me see anything.
"I'm doing anything, I told you-"
"I'm in your mind, your thinking about this, not me. Why don't you let me see?"
"I said it changes frequently." Another image came up. We were in the bedroom and it was the time when we... were in bed together. But this one lasted shorter than the other one and was literally a flash.
"Your thinking about this. Your..."
"Don't jump to any conclusions. Melissa is doing this. Or Eva. Have you noticed they haven't showed up yet?" Amelie asked, looking annoyed and a little fussed.
"Maybe, she made it to be like this. To show that you do still care about me." I went to hold her hand, but Amelie stepped back.
"Your were right, this is a bad idea." She ran her hands down her face and sighed. "Of course I care about you, but not enough to call love."
"So why do you think about when we were together?"
"My subconscious mind, maybe. Or witchcraft... One of the two." Another image came up this time of when Amelie first said she loved me. This image stayed longer than the last and showed Amelie twirling my hair around her fingers, like she used to.
"Why don't you get rid of this one?"
"Another will just come up. At least this one doesn't show anything..." I heard a low growl and turned around, the room vanishing. "Why are you doing this?" Amelie demanded.
"I need you to understand, that you haven't lost all love for Claire. You need her to help you and you can't do that by being as cold to her as possible."
"Are you doing this? Making me remember when we were together?"
"No, your doing that yourself. I'm just making you stay here. Me and Eva have no control over your mind. We just do a small spell to be able to talk with you."
I knew it... I had known all along, but now Amelie couldn't deny it.
"I will be nicer to her. Now break the spell." Amelie ordered.
"I want you to say something to her." Melissa said.
"If it's "I love you" then your mistaken."
"No. You need to be nicer. You are not just using her, your glad she's back."
"You may not know, but I'm prone to uninvited guests visiting me whenever they please. The longer we stay the more the risk becomes. Now break the spell."
"I cloaked your house. We can stay here as long as it takes, to admit your true feelings for her." Melissa said, then she vanished.
Amelie's Point of View
Why did I agree to this? I should've known that Melissa meant something else about that note, saying I had to be nicer to Claire. I had to keep memories from the past hidden, hoping it would keep Claire quiet, but now that was not looking likely.
"Why do you do this?" Claire asked.
I sighed and sat down, not having a clue how I did that since there was no visible floor.
I decided to tell her a story, so she wouldn't be so obsessive with me. "Do you think I would hurt anyone intentionally?"
"No, of course not. You wouldn't hurt me and you care about other people, I've seen it." Claire came to sit down next to me.
"Your wrong. When I was younger, I didn't care about humans feelings much. I've done it before. I've let both men and women think I have feelings for them... Then I would leave them, before they notice I don't age."
"So your doing it to me now?" Claire asked.
"I did have feelings for you at one point." I said, not looking at her. "But they fade with everything else over time."
"Mine haven't faded." Claire said. Of course they haven't. That's why you haven't left me yet. I thought. I let a memory come up of a house. walked in with a man and closed the door.
"When was this?"
"1205. The man's name was Garry Marshall." I replied. "I thought I liked Garry. But his family was highly superstitious. They watched me everytime, I went to visit. Then one day, Garry led me into this room and said we can't be together anymore. I protested that he could talk with his parents, but he insisted that it would never work and we couldn't see each other anymore.
"I didn't like that, and since I was still young and hadn't gotten control over my emotions. I got angry." The memory showed me grabbing Garry by his neck and throwing him against the wall. My eyes were red and fangs down. Garry looked terrified and tried to flee but I easily caught up to him and bit him, then snapped his neck when I had my fill. "I quickly left. I knew they would start a hunt for me soon."
"But you would never do that now. What does this prove?" Claire asked.
"I'm not to be trusted. Sooner or later, I will break that trust and you will hate me."
"You won't. Your just scared of being alone."
"Child, I have been alone longer than you think. I only made Morganville to protect the vampires in the world." I sighed and showed another memory, this time much later 1492. I had been in a relationship with a young woman for about a year, when I had gotten bored of her. The humans were getting weary in the village I stayed in, and taking precautions to keep out vampires and evil spirits.
"I had been in a relationship with this woman, she was young and naive. There was a time in my life where everyone was very suspicious. They kept garlic outside for vampires and wore silver bands around their necks."
"Did you...?"
"No, we were just very close but we weren't friends. She wouldn't wear a necklace, because she said it made her itch. This one day, I was incredibly hungry and so I led her to a place were no-one came and... I killed her."
"Why?" Claire asked.
"I was simply bored of her... Also, I didn't pause when I was draining her. That time when I held you against the glass in the car, I really could have killed you. You don't know my strength. You trying to make me sound like a saint, but the things I have done... I wouldn't blame you if you thought me a monster."
Claire grabbed my hand, before I could pull away. "Your not a monster."
I pulled my hand away before I any feelings I had buried resurfaced. "What I'm trying to say is I don't have feelings for you anymore. Be grateful you weren't one of the men I was with before."
"What you've shown me is that you were worried that the men would leave you, so you broke it off with them so you wouldn't go through it. And with the girl... You wouldn't do that with me."
"You are so confident of that?" I asked. Melissa appeared in front of us.
"I guess that will work. I had better wake you up, the grey haired man is becoming agitated."
"What about Christopher?" I asked, standing up. "Have you found him?"
"We are close. Eva has narrowed down the men to just 3. It won't take long now."
I gasped a little and opened my eyes. I was back in the living room. I let go of Claire and sat down.
"Amelie! What the hell were you doing?" Oliver asked, storming in. The door banged against the wall.
"The ghosts were showing me what they were doing to find Christopher." I looked to Claire who is flexing her hands, but she was not looking at me.
"For two hours?"
2 hours...? "It didn't feel like that. Claire go to your room, I will be with you shortly." Claire opened her mouth to say something, but she thought better and walked out of the room.
Oliver glared at me. "Tell me the truth. It doesn't take that long to show you something in dreamland."
I sighed. "My behaviour towards Claire has been undesirable, so Melissa made me stay until I had reconciled with her."
"What? What did you do?"
"I showed her some memories to try and scare her off or something. To show I'm not to be trusted, but she didn't believe I can hurt her."
"Never do that again. They can communicate perfectly well with paper, they don't need to trap you in own mind." Oliver growled quietly then calmed. "Are you alright?"
"The spell caused some pain, but nothing I couldn't handle. Other than that, I'm fine."
Oliver pushed my hair away from my face. "You could use a brush." He picked one of my desk and handed it to me. I brushed my hair a few times then stopped.
"Oliver-" Olver surprised me with a kiss. When he pulled back he held my hand.
"If you decide to go back with... Her, then just remember that... I love you too. In an attempt not to make this sound childish, I knew and had feelings for you first." Then he let go and walked out.
I had only just got over it when I heard a commotion and went out into the hall, where I saw Oliver pinning Claire against the wall. Claire looked enraged and I guessed she had tried to harm Oliver but she had lost.
"You can't be with him!" Claire shouted.
"Can I kill her, My lady? She did just try to rip my throat out."
"No. Gerard, take Claire to her room and make sure she stays there. Oliver, leave please." With a harsh glance at me and a hateful glare at Claire, Oliver let go of Claire and walked out of the house, slamming the door on his way out. Gerrard grabbed Claire's arm and took her upstairs. I went back to the living room and sat down.
I felt annoyance that Claire was yet again listening in on my conversations, but I couldn't be hostile towards her. I didn't know what length Melissa's witchcraft went to and I did not want to be trapped in my mind again.